Ancuta De Sena / Анкуца Де Сена

Ancuta De Sena was born in Zalau, Salaj, Romania, Northern Transilvania. She has graduated from the Iuliu Hatieganu University of Medicine and Pharmacy , Cluj-Napoca, in 1997. She has worked as a military medic for the Romanian Mistry of the Interior. She has been writing short stories, some of which have won awards in student literary competitions, and she has been painting since her student years. She has participated in the creative life of the literary circles in Cluj and Zalau. She is also interested in alternative medicine, yoga, ayurveda, neuro-linguistic programming. 

Анкуца Де Сена е родена в Залъу, Салаж, Румъния, Северна Трансилвания. Завършила е Университета по медицина и фармация „Юлиу Хациегану”, в Клуж-Напока през 1997 г. Работила е като военен лекар в системата на румънското Министерство на вътрешните работи.

От студентските си години пише разкази, награждавани в студентски литературни конкурси и рисува. Участва в творческия живот на литературните среди в Клуж и Залъу. Интересува се също от алтернативна медицина, йога, аюрведа, невро-лингвистично програмиране.

These are watercolors painted during her first days in Bulgaria in early July, 2012.
Това са акварели, рисувани през първите й дни в България в началото на юли, 2012.

LEOPARD IN THE WILDERNESS

a short story 

"They go wandering through the wilderness with wild beasts, as they themselves would be beasts."

       — St. Ephrem Sirul, "Eulogy to the Lonely Ones"

She sat on a rock in the wilderness and, while the moon was setting huge, looked inward through an immense silence. And so she prayed: "O Lord, my first love, allow my soul to melt into your heart! If this is your will, and if it’s according to your love, send me a sign."
            Suddenly a wind enshrouded her, whispering around words and phrases from the sacred texts that had been inscribed into her being. She took her body out of the refuge of her mantle and straightened her back, hands on knees. She closed her eyes, ready to receive the sign.

            And then on the horizon rose the roar of the storm. Storm. She opened her eyes, puzzled. A storm? Not even a drop. Only rock and ice. Only two drops. Of tears. But how meaningless was this lament before the storm! Before the real storm.

            She drew a deep breath into her chest and the storm absorbed her suddenly in a bewildering roar, twisting her hair with sand, and thrusting her dizzy into a thousand hungry vortexes. And she became one with the stone and only her hair was waving up like fire. And the wild wind built walls of sand over her feet and over her head.
At the climax, when only faith can keep you alive, the storm unleashed, kidnapping all her thoughts. And with truth, after she was purified, the desert storm went on the wilderness road, as it came.

            She slowly moved her fingers, raising the sand piled over her, lifted her front with beads and yarn flowing as in the hourglass, stood up and shook her clothes, made simply of her own hair. She turned away slowly, sunk in a deep clarity. Like a leopard in the wilderness. And the stars shined her way.

            She entered naked into the city, slowly passing along the streets, stepping silently on bare feet.

            No one remarked about her nakedness, because the people were busy during the day, trapped in their own purposes.

            Only her friends saw, as she sat on the steps of the temple, chin supported in her hands.
            “Why do you walk naked through the city, you, who are a saint?”

            A long time she remained silent, watching the apparently chaotic movement of the people in the square.

            “While meditating in the wilderness, God sent an angel to me, who thoroughly interrogated me and reprimanded me with anger for my huge pride. All signs of holiness, he pulled on me. Meat from the bones, as if he wanted to tear me apart! I waved like a cloth and I have already left to take its toll.”

            “What a terrible angel!”

            “However, I am alive and emptied. The people will dress me, each according to their imagination, in a way that does not matter as long as I do not mind.”
Friends gathered slowly, for nothing was more welcome than a lengthy discussion, weaving directions into beauty, laughter and warmth. And they clothed her in a wonderful long dress and their lark voices built nests packed with smiles in her heart.
 And then she recognized the truth, like a great secret hidden in the depths of the soul, for years covered with layers and layers of sacred texts: "Whenever I would forget God for a happy and bright home! He knows this. That's why he sends angels of anger to throw stones into my heart. "

            And clothed in white robes and holding their hands, they all ran through the city. And everyone who saw their beauty heard their songs and their laughs, felt his heart filled with joy.

            Many men came to her to enlighten their souls but she saw no one.
He was a warrior of the desert, survived many wars, and was disgusted by women. He saw her among her friends and called her on the steps of the temple. He told her how wonderful she is and, deepened in the purest joy, they sat embraced. Their souls bonding.

            And people walked around them like a river flowing to nowhere.
They shared many days and nights, two wandering sons of the desert, carved from the same stone. He showed her his horse, the weapons he loved most and said all those words which she herself would have said if she were a man. Their hearts were looking eye to eye, scanning the infinite within.

            He said that he had to go to the war. She promised that she would wait for him. And after they exchanged vows, he went among his friends.
For a long time he did not come home. She remained immersed in her daily routine, in the study of sacred books, and often looked out the window, hoping that he will be reminded of her. Nights in a row she blinked, huddled within the sheets, scanning the darkness where she saw lightning pictures and memories, words and feelings. And behind the images, in part, protruding like a small pungent knife, was a mysterious little creature: fear. He may not come again. Perhaps this departure and the unnatural silence was his way to say goodbye.

            And the small nocturnal being stood still there in the room, behind her and to one side.
            She sighed and revolved nesting and seeking the waving of his white shirt. She turned her head and face onto the pillow, searching for his scent. When she found it, somewhere deep in her memory, a much-needed certainty, her heart escaped the pain, and she fell asleep.

            Morning after morning she started again: rituals of purification and study of sacred books in which she immersed herself with wildness and despair.

            But night came inevitable. The inner eye opened, again awake. Uselessly, she blinked in the dark, the small creature was there. Drop by drop, moment by moment, her heart filled with fear. Fear for the unwanted end. The horror that she will never see him again, fear that she will not hear his voice, fear that she will never feel the embrace with his perfume and pleasure.

            The desert wind knocked the shutters and the small creature opened its eyes widely, together with her: "The angel is my owner". And she squirmed, profound crying squeezed through her heart, but she didn’t want to let it go. And the finger of the angel of the storm banged the shutters. "There is nothing to wait for anymore, being this the last night! One word and I will take him off your heart forever!" The angel stood waving his cloak of sand over the desert. The friend Storm. The Right-maker.

            She arose from the bed, immediately determined to end this. She put both her knees on the floor and began to pray for him with all her love. White fingers clenched during the wind’s battle in the night, until the passionate embracing of the palms fused into a sacred light. And into the floating of the prayer for his health and life, the crystal drops of sweat melted into the aura of the full moon.

            Morning arrived in a deep peace. And while singing in the sunny courtyard, gathering scattered objects after the storm, she heard people calling on the street. She wiped her hands and ran with other people, curious to see what had happened.
During the storm, a mousetrap of the neighbors caught a small creature. She rushed to see it. She watched magnetized, with the hair of her arms prickling upright. The people told how they killed the creature, how much it cried and struggled and how hard it was...
She withdrew from the crowd and hid in the house, in a deep silence. Her soul trembled. Trembling flesh. The small creature now moved before her eyes.

            And one evening he returned. He was weak and very tired. No kiss and no embrace, only talk of how distraught he was: disillusioned by his comrades in arms, by the places where they walked, disappointed by the fate of battles in which he fought.
And all he wanted was to sleep. She set the white sheets, gave him to eat and let him rest in peace. She withdrew and, biting her fists, prayed with tears of joy.
The next day she made him food, served him on the finest dishes and listened again to all his complaints.

            The third day the same, the fourth day, the fifth day as the sixth day ... On the seventh day she said: "Let me smell your shirt."

            And he began again to talk about what he was doing: comrades did not fare well, the weapons became rusted.

            “No one in the world had any idea how seriously iron can be bitten by neglect, even the noblest iron, if a small spot of rust is not removed in time. Especially since times were as they were and you never knew when you need a good weapon.” And her heart closed into a bitter knot.

            Another day she tried to tell him about what she had done in his absence. She explained how much progress she made in the study of sacred texts. And he indignantly interrupted her and told her that this is not the way to read sacred texts. What did she want? To show off such a thing, simply to stand out in the eyes of the world? Eventually, she was like everyone else, willing because of vanity to cite the sacraments, even if they had no idea about these matters. Only did things to give the impression that they know what they are doing. He had seen many such people. And no one was better. Anyway, he had a lot of important things to do and couldn’t understand why he was cooling his mouth when he was sure that these discussions would not change anything.

           After two days they had the courage to address each other again, he said that she was hurting herself with her imagination, that she was thinking too much and should not care about so much futile thoughts. Every word she uttered, he turned it against her and when she stopped talking, he asked why she got angry when the truth should be just accepted as is.

          She closed herself in her room and she was not even able to put her knees on the floor for praying. She stayed so long with her blind heart, beating back and forth. The sun was setting and rising over the desert. He was on the outside, whistling.

          And in the night the wind softly creaked the shutters. And she turned her head. The storm was coming. Not a drop of rain. Only rock and ice. Twisting sands at night.

          A bolt of lightning crackled above, nearly shattering the heavens.

          The first two drops burst hard on the floor, where her knees settled once for prayer. And two more, splashed warmly, darkening the stone, for the angel's creature who kept her company so many nights. And two more, for the soul of the right and good warrior who never came back home and for whom she was ready to forget God. And two more, because she was on the point to forget God. And two more... And more ... And more ... Mute crying, biting wet fists.

         In the morning another person woke up. She tore off her clothes, jumped out the window and stepped unheard steps under the last star in the path of the storm, returning to her true and first love, which never came, but never went anywhere. And she knew that there in the desert, somewhere, maybe in the heart of God (certainly there!) there is the soul of the mystical, free and always winning man, that her heart waited for countless days and nights.